The Prodigal Mage: Review

If you were to sum up Karen Miller’s new book The Prodigal Mage in two words, those words would be: “Nothing happens”.

The book is a monument to one of the most tempting traps that an author can fall into: to focus so heavily on developing their characters and their interactions that they neglect to situate those characters in an interesting and complex world and with a plot that gradually reveals its twists and turns.

I don’t know exactly where Miller went wrong in the construction of The Prodigal Mage, but it’s disappointing to see the Australian author, who is well-known for her 2005 book The Innocent Mage, go so far off course in her latest effort. This is one of those books for the hardcore fans of Miller’s previous books only.

The events in The Prodigal Mage kick off after the end of Miller’s previous Kingmaker, Kingbreaker series, consisting of The Innocent Mage and Innocence Lost (which was published as The Awakened Mage in several countries).

As the book’s back cover notes:

“Years ago, at the cost of many lives, Asher defeated the dark sorceror, Morg, and brought peace to Lur. But now, happily raising a family, Asher realises that peace and safety are an illusion. Something has woken in Lur’s earth, creating weather that threatens to tear their world apart.”

Where the Kingmaker, Kingbreaker series primarily focused on Asher, the so-called Innocent Mage, The Prodigal Mage also focuses on his family, particularly his son Rafel, who has inherited much of his magic and temper.

As the book unfurls, so does the relationship between Asher and his family. Rafel will grow into his powers and young adulthood, with all the troubles that a normal teenager has and more. His sister Deenie will grow into a mature but troubled young woman. And Asher, still deeply in love with his wife Dathne, will grow older, and like to many of the old, think he knows what’s best for anyone younger than him.

The book focuses heavily on the troubled relationship between Asher and Rafel. Asher becomes more and more the stereotypical overbearing father, who doesn’t respect his son enough to tell him the truth about his own powers and the world around them, even when it’s dangerous for him to remain ignorant. Rafel, consequently, becomes ever more rebellious as the book goes on.

The relationship develops under pressure as it becomes apparent that not all of the powerfully destructive magic that was quelled in the previous books has been fully laid to rest. Left to themselves, perhaps Asher and Rafel would easily have worked out their differences. But when the fate of their entire world is at stake, things aren’t so easy.

Throw a few meddling mages into the mix, and things can get a bit wild.

As mentioned above, the central problem with The Prodigal Mage for readers is that there is virtually no plot. The reader is forced through endless internal debates in the characters’ minds and tense discussions between them, yet at very few points in the book do any concrete events occur to fuel those debates.

When events do move to a faster pace in The Prodigal Mage, they are over quickly and they don’t satisfy the reader’s curiousity about the world in which they are taking place.

A further problem is that Karen Miller, unlike contemporaries such as Brandon Sanderson, seems completely unable to really articulate the magic system in The Prodigal Mage. It boils the blood of Asher and Rafel continuously, and you have to “learn” different spells and so on … but how does it really work? They just seems to click their fingers and hey presto, things happen.

I would have really liked to see some more explanation of just what it is that the mages in The Prodigal Mage are dealing with. For example, the difference between Olken and Doranen magic could have been better articulated, not to mention the mysterious magic of Morg, which seems to be immensely powerful and alive even after his death.

Karen Miller

In The Prodigal Mage, Karen Miller has created a cardboard cut-out world, with a cardboard cut-out magic system and a card-board cut-out class structure. The plot is virtually non-existent.

Perhaps the saving grace of the book, then, is its characterisation.

Miller is at pains to flesh out her characters and their interactions. Despite the book’s other troubles, you will likely end it sympathising with Rafel particularly, and feeling some level of compassion for Asher as he grows older. You will probably end the book feeling fond of some of the minor characters as well.

There is no doubt that many of the lengthy internal monologues and external conversations portrayed in The Prodigal Mage are very realistic. And you’ll enjoy reading them, and feeling the emotions that the characters are wrenched through as they make their tough choices in life.

The art of a fantasy writer like Guy Gavriel Kay is that his prose is so sparse that you can read deep characterisation between the lines of his constantly moving plot. Karen Miller is perhaps the opposite kind of writer; she provides all the fleshy details of her character’s thoughts. If you’re the kind of reader who likes your characters spelled out, you’ve come to the right place.

But ultimately this kind of deep character exploration is not enough to carry The Prodigal Mage. Characters can only develop properly in response to the events that surround them and the author’s shaping hand. Left to their own devices, they will swirl endlessly around in a static quagmire of their own inanity. Such is the fate of the Innocent Mage and his family.

Keeping the Door’s copy of The Prodigal Mage was provided for review purposes by the book’s Australian publisher, Harper Collins.